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AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED JULY 24, 1849, 



BEFORE THE 



UNITED LITEEARY SOCIETIES 



HAMILTON COLLEGE 



BY WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D. 



ALBANY: ,^ 

PRINTED BY CHARLES VAN BENTHUYSEN. 



1849. 



M 



AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED JULY 24, 1849, 



BEFORE THE 



UNITED LITERARY SOCIETIES 



HAMILTON COLLEGE 



BY WILLIAM BY SPRAGUE, D. D 



ALBANY: 

PRINTED BY CHARLES VAN BENTHUYSEN, 

1849. 



ADDRESS. 



In the selection of topics for these literary 
festivals, it seems to have been generally conceded 
that more honour is to be rendered to the graces of 
literature or the speculations of philosophy, than to 
the stern realities of life or the practical workings of 
society. The men whom you ask to serve you on 
these occasions, are not, for the most part, m.en of 
literary ease and leisure, who are devoted to the 
pursuits of learning and nothing else; but they 
have each some practical vocation; and it is not 
improbable that the very invitation you send them 
to come and preside at your annual jubilee, finds 
them in the midst of the writing of a sermon, or 
the framing of a plea, or the preparation for a 
political speech, or possibly the execution of some 
commercial enterprize. They read your letter, and 
the first emotion is kindly and sympathetic ; they 
are pre-disposed to render to you as scholars, to the 
cause of learning in general, possibly /lo their own 
Alma mater, whatever aid they can; and if they 



take counsel of their first impulses only, it is almost 
certain that you have secured their services. The 
sober second thought, however, is sometimes more 
embarrassing. They have been away from the 
groves of the Academy so long, that they are unwil- 
ling to return hither, even for a brief visit, lest both 
the muses and the graces should have forgotten 
them ; lest the dust which they have gathered from 
their habitual contact with the world, or possibly 
the strongly marked shibboleth of their profession or 
occupation, shoLild give them a foreign, if not a 
vulgar aspect, in these calm and honoured retreats. 
But the point once settled that they will accept 
your invitation, they feel themselves pledged to 
come up, so far as they can, to the spirit of the 
occasion, by surrendering themselves chiefly or 
entirely to the influence of literary, — certainly of 
intellectual associations ; and if they do not plume 
themselves for a flight to the top of Parnassus, they 
at least go through the formality of seeming to drink 
at the fount of Helicon. Or if they disdain these 
restraints, they bring before you, perhaps some great 
theme of political or national bearing, and evolve 
from it principles which form the basis or enter into 
the frame work of the social fabric. All this is a 
legitimate use of the occasion ; and some of these 
efforts have proved labours of love not more to the 
nation than to the world ; not more to the cause of 



learning than to the general canse of human im- 
provement. But I fear you will think that I evince 
my respect for established usage in these matters 
rather by words than deeds ; for instead of asking 
you to repose beneath the bowers of classical 
literature, or to enter the field of philosophical 
research, or to encounter any of the great problems 
of civil polity, I propose simply to spread before you 
-some practical considerations in the contemplation 
and application of which, you will be likely to 
meet the demands which are made upon you by the 
spirit of the age. 

The spirit of the age, — the spirit of amj age, — 
what is it ? We speak of it as familiarly as we use 
house-hold words; and yet when we come to 
analyze it, we are obliged to acknowledge that it is, 
to a great extent, a mysterious thing. Is there not 
an analogy between the character of an age and 
the constitution of man ? As man is formed of 
body and spirit, so an age has its outward exhibi- 
tions, its visible movements, — if I may use the 
expression, — ^its material character; and besides 
this, it has a vital, spiritual mechanism, — an 
inward, living principle, of which all that is visible 
and palpable is only the external manifestation. 
The spirit of an age is a complicated thing ; it is 
the embodiment of influences the most diverse and 
opposite, — in such a manner, however, as to render 



its general impulses direct and simple. The spirit 
of an age is, to a great extent, hereditary; for 
though each successive generation has much to do 
in forming its own character, yet it does this under 
an entailed influence ; — the good and the evil of 
other generations commingle in the habits of thought 
and feeling and action, which characterize our own. 
The spirit of an age is a thing of mighty power, — 
harder to resist than the spirit of the storm ; and 
yet it is moral power, and therefore a legitimate 
subject for an intellectual and moral agency. 

The ages past have had severally their peculiar 
characteristics ; and as they lie embalmed in history, 
each seems to be giving forth its own lessons of 
instruction or admonition. Our own age, though it 
has had poured into it the influence of all the ages that 
have preceded, differs in some important respects 
from them all. I might instance several particulars ; 
but I shall limit myself at present to one ; — I mean 
its eminently practical tendencies. This is, to some 
extent, the result of the more general diffusion of 
knowledge ; for whereas knowledge was formerly a 
sort of hermit on the earth, and scarcely breathed 
any other air than that of cloisters and monasteries, 
she has become transformed into a cosmopolite, and 
claims the wide world as her dwelling place. And 
whereas knowledge, during the period of her impris- 
onment, felt not the force of moral obligation, and 



was satisfied to revel by herself in sublime and 
luxurious, and often dreamy speculations, since she 
has been allowed to come into the world, she has 
felt the kindlings of a diffusive spirit, and has 
entered, in no inconsiderable degree, into the 
vigorous activities which every where press upon 
us. I trust, therefore, that I shall not be considered 
wide of the occasion, if I occupy the time allotted 
to this exercise in bringing to your consideration 
some of the peculiar dangers, duties and helps of 
educated men, resulting from the practical ten- 
dencies of the age. 

I can imagine that there may be some such 
thorough disciples of the utilitarian school, as to be 
well nigh startled at the suggestion that there should 
be any danger from that feature of the age to which 
I now refer ; for they are accustomed to consider as 
concentrated at this point whatever of promise or 
hope there may be in respect to the future. But is 
there any thing so good as not to be liable to 
perversion ? Have not facts proved that Christianity 
herself, — God's richest gift to man, is capable of 
being transformed into a minister of evil ; that her 
authority has often been pleaded for the perpetration 
of deeds on which she has solemnly pronounced an 
abiding curse. Admit then that the thoroughly 
practical character of the age should be hailed as 
marking an epoch of jubilee in the history of the 



race, — yet is there no reason why, like other 
good things, it should be guarded against abuse; 
especially why those upon whom its workings for 
good or evil chiefly depend, should gird themselves 
for a conflict with whatever might interfere with its 
healthful operation. 

I say then, there is danger from the highly 
practical character of the age, that educated men 
will repress in some degree their own intellectual 
aspirations ; will come short of those high attain- 
ments which it is alike their privilege and their 
duty to reach. We are to bear in mind that not 
only the original capacity for acquiring knowledge, 
but the knowledge which we actually acqiiire, is a 
talent which Heaven has intrusted to us for 
improvement and increase. The student who has 
completed his collegiate course, and gone forth into 
the world with his academic honours, is justly 
supposed to have become somewhat familiar with 
the several departments of science and literature ; 
and withal to have gained a vigour and expansion 
of intellect that will render it easy for him to make 
still higher efforts and more enlarged acquisitions. 
Now it is due to himself, it is due to society, it is 
due to God, that he should faithfully improve not 
only the increased power of acting, but the increased 
power of thinking, which is hereby secured to him. 
His own immortal nature, destined as it is, to 



9 

illimitable progress, spurns at the idea of being 
stayed in its onward course, and claims its own 
inherent right to forget the things that are behind 
and press forward. The common good of the race, 
especially of the community in which he lives, 
forbids him to lay aside the character of a student ; 
for in our day at least no man studies for himself 
alone ; and it were as hopeless to attempt to keep 
bright thoughts from darting through the world, as 
it were to undertake to imprison the light of 
Heaven. And is it any thing more than a reasonable 
tribute to Him who constituted him with these 
noble faculties, and who has surrounded and still 
surrounds him with such ample means for their 
development and culture, — ^that the obvious design 
of his providence should be carried out in a 
consistent and harmonious intellectual growth? 
That student who has reached his full measure of 
attainment at the close of his collegiate course, who, 
from any cause which does not result immediately 
from the ordering of God's providence, suffers 
himself to feel that his mission as a scholar is 
accomplished, — I hesitate not to say is an offender 
against Heaven and earth. The measure of 
knowledge which he has already acquired, still 
remains with him as a talent ; but in one sense at 
least, it is a talent hid in a napkin or buried in the 
earth. 



10 

Now just consider, for a moment, the circumstances 
in which the young scholar goes forth from academic 
scenes and engagements, to appear on the great 
arena of human society. Does he find himself 
amidst the reigning stillness of the twelfth century ? 
Do the movements, or rather does the absolute 
stagnation, of the age invite him to seek an 
inglorious repose or to become a literary or 
philosophical or theological recluse ? So far from 
it that whatever meets his eye seems endued 
with the power of perpetual motion. He finds 
that it is a working age upon which he has 
fallen, — an age that more easily gives a dis- 
pensation from thought than from action; and 
that, unless he is a working man, he must have at 
least an anomalous position in society. Casts he 
an eye towards the liberal professions? Labour, 
effective labour, is the law of each ; each is a 
perpetual active ministration within its own appro- 
priate sphere. And does he find the statesman to 
be little else than a man of leisure ? He is perhaps 
the veriest slave of all ; for his country which is 
his master, keeps him busy night and day. The 
whole world seems to have become satisfied that 
the great fabric of society has gone up wrong ; and 
the whole world seems to be acting under a common 
impulse to endeavour to re-construct it. 

Is it not obvious that such a state of things as 



11 

this, involves a powerful temptation to our educated 
young men to rest in superficial attainments and a 
very imperfect intellectual development ? Is there 
not danger that, amidst all the multitudinous 
demands that are made upon them for active effort, 
the claims upon their reflective powers will he 
either wholly or partially overlooked? Is it not 
more than possible that, from being kept so con- 
stantly in contact with that which is gross and 
material, they will cease to put forth those efforts 
which are essential to all mental discipline and 
progress ? Especially is there nothing to be feared 
from that intense devotion to mammon which seems 
to be the master passion, at least of our own country ; 
which not only engrosses the faculties but debases 
them; which not only disinclines but disqualifies 
the mind to range into those higher fields of thought 
from which are gathered the choicest intellectual 
treasures ? And would it be strange, if even they 
who mean to be vigorous and earnest students, 
should catch somewhat of the spirit of the outer 
world, and find their thoughts involuntarily sympa- 
thizing in the everlasting whirl of business around 
them ? The answer to these questions is supplied 
by a large and convincing experience. We have on 
every side of us, both in and out of the liberal 
professions, men who, in the earlier stages of their 
career, gave promise of a rich and vigorous maturity ; 



12 

and we flattered ourselves that, let their vocation in 
life be w^hat it might, those fine faculties would 
never suffer from a stinted development. But it 
has come to pass that they who, as children, were 
men, as men are little more than children. In 
doing homage to the practical tendencies of the age, 
they have caught the fever of avarice, or else they 
have become delirious at the shrine of some political 
idol, or possibly they have plunged into the gulf 
of fanaticism to get baptized with the spirit of 
some doubtful reformation. Certainly they have 
done nothing for learning; — nothing to give them 
a name in the republic of letters or the world of 
intellect. 

We cannot suitably estimate the evil of which I 
have here spoken, without considering it as the cause 
of more extended evil ; in other words, without taking 
into view its bearings upon society. Let it be 
remembered that it rests with the educated men of 
a community to regulate its standard of taste and 
acquirement, and thus to exalt or depress its 
intellectual character. While the greater amount 
of the existing intelligence is centered in themselves, 
they exert a powerful influence to mould the minds 
of the mass; they have either a direct or indirect 
control of all the institutions of learning; they are 
looked up to by the young as model specimens in 
some or other of the departments of knowledge; 



IS 

and thus they leave the impress of their own minds 
upon their generation, especially upon those who 
are rising up to occupy their places. If then these 
men upon whom it devolves to give character to 
society, and who may be regarded as the fountain 
of intellectual influence, obey the impulses of the 
spirit of the age to action, at the expense of coming 
to a dead pause in the career of improvement ; — if 
their knowledge is contracted where it ought to be 
extensive, or superficial where it ought to be profound, 
or stationary where it ought to be advancing, — 
believe me, society may justly arraign them at her 
bar, on the charge of having carelessly or wantonly 
trifled with her best interests. She has a right to 
all that intellectual energy and elevation which the 
due culture of their faculties would have imparted 
to her; and what she has a right to receive, they 
surely have no right to withhold. 

Allow me to advert here, for a moment, a little 
more particularly, to one effect of a low standard of 
mental culture, — I mean the prevalence of a 
superficial literature. The taste of any community 
or any period is at once formed and indicated by 
the character of the books which are most earnestly 
sought and most extensively read. Now the men 
who make our books generally belong to the class 
which we denominate educated men; and as the 
stream does not rise above the fountain, the book 



14 

Avill not rise above its author. If therefore the 
educated mind becomes a superficial mind, — if they 
^who undertake to speak to us through the press are 
inadequate to this high office of furnishing public 
instruction or even public amusement, — what 
else have we to expect than that the press itself 
will become a mere Pandora's box, — that a flood 
of worthless books will be poured out upon us, and as 
a consequence, that our literature will swell into a 
dead sea of mere trash, if not of absolute corruption. 
For let it be remembered, a superficial literature has 
only to be left to itself to become a licentious 
literature; in the absence of that which is good, 
positive evil will inevitably obtrude itself; and 
what would otherwise be cast away as insipid or 
worthless, is rendered tolerable, even palatable, by a 
seasoning of vulgar or profane wit. And while the 
literature of the day has much to do in forming the 
public taste, the public taste in turn is not less efficient 
in controlling the literature ; for books are written not 
to be given away, but to be sold ; and if an author 
will find purchasers, he must give the people what 
they want. I am sure that I should do no injustice 
to the present age, or to our own country in 
particular, if I should hold it up to you as an 
example, even a fearful example, of the evil of 
which I am speaking. Our literature can indeed 
toast of some sparkling gems, which we are proud 



15 

to own, and the fame of which we expect will prove 
imperishable; but that a large proportion of the 
volumes that our presses are weekly turning off, of 
native as well as foreign production, are at least of 
questionable utility, let the light and romantic, not 
to say corrupt and profligate character, of too many 
of their readers, testify. I do not attribute this 
result altogether even to the more remote practical 
workings of the age ; but just so far as this spirit 
has diminished the love of study, of earnest and 
profound thought, thereby generating a false taste, 
and ministering to it, it is made responsible, (and 
yet not justly so, for it is only by miserable 
perversion,) for a proportionable amount of intellect- 
ual and moral evil. 

But if there is danger from the practical character 
of the age that our educated men will contract a 
habit of superficial thinking, and thus bring evil 
upon their generation and posterity, is there not 
danger also that some of them, from the natural 
tendency of the human mind, will rush to the 
opposite extreme, and instead of being sober 
students, will become mere speculative fanatics, 
and waste their lives amidst miserable vagaries 
which can never add a cubit to their intellectual 
stature. I think I have known cases of precisely 
this character,— individuals of originally fine 
powers, who have become deeply impressed with 



16 

the disproportionate amount of thought and of 
action in the community in which they have lived, 
or perhaps in the great intellectual world ; and in 
the effort to escape the common evil, they have 
actually incurred a greater one; — have yielded to a 
spirit of reckless speculation, and have turned out 
profitless and mystical theories, as the unquestionable 
verities of a sound philosophy, or possibly of a sound 
theology; and then they have put the press in 
requisition to render their dreams, if possible, the 
common property of the world. No doubt this is 
sometimes the result of a peculiar constitution of 
mind predisposing to wild and startling speculations ; 
but it admits not of question that in many cases at 
least, it is assisted not a little by the antagonist 
tendencies of the times. I venture to say that this 
spirit, so far as it prevails, is among the most adverse 
of all the signs of the age. It corrupts the public 
taste ; it weakens the public faith ; it acts like a 
canker upon the public weal. Better let men's 
minds contract a little rust from inaction, than 
attempt to polish them at the expense of giving 
them a wrong direction. 

If I might be allowed to extend this train of 
remark to illustrate the danger from the workings 
of the practical spirit to the general cause of 
intellectual improvement, and of the public weal, I 
would say that this spirit has already done important 



17 

disservice to the cause of learning by attempting to 
exercise an undue sway in our public seminaries in 
making war upon the Latin and Greek classics. It 
professes to have discovered that these treasures of 
antiquity are little better than rubbish; that the 
ancients knew nothing on any subject but what the 
moderns know better ; and it has shown itself more 
than willing to drive out of the temple of science 
all who deal in these worthless intellectual fabrics. 
I would not claim for the classics any undue or 
disproportionate importance, either as a matter of 
intellectual accomplishment or as a means of intel- 
lectual growth ; nor is it any part of my intention 
on this occasion to attempt to adjust or to defend 
their relative claims ; but I have no hesitation in 
expressing the opinion that every effort to send them 
into exile is nothing better than an assault upon the 
great interests of education. It is worthy of remark, 
however, that the most vigorous opposers of classical 
learning have generally had this for their apology, — 
that they have spoken out of the fulness or rather 
the emptiness of their ignorance ; and where it has 
been otherwise, they have, as has been said of 
the lamented Grimke, actually demonstrated the 
value of such acquisitions by the eloquence and taste 
which they have brought to the ignoble work of 
disparaging them. 

There is danger, moreover, that the practical spirit 



18 

of the age, by diminishing the taste for intellectual 
pursuits and depressing the standard of intellectual 
acquirement, will defeat its own legitimate operation. 
That there exists in connection with almost every 
department of society, a mass of machinery that 
is capable of working out important results, no one, 
with his eyes open, can question ; but this machinery, 
in order to accomplish its end, must be under the 
control of a virtuous intelligence. This becomes 
more and more necessary with the constantly 
increasing activities of the age; for, as in the 
natural world, the explosion of a body is to be 
dreaded somewhat in proportion to the velocity 
with which it moves, so the moral movements of 
the age, accelerated as they are by a thousand 
influences unknown to preceding ages, require the 
most vigilant inspection, the most intelligent 
guidance. In centuries gone by, when the human 
mind was sitting in the region of the shadow of 
death, and the lights of learning existed only as 
" lamps in sepulchres," it was a wise provision of 
Providence that the all-pervading spirit was a spirit 
of inaction ; for the only way to render ignorance 
in any degree harmless^ is to keep her quiet. But 
even in our own time, in the blazing light of this 
nineteenth century, have we not had painful 
illustrations of this truth in many of the efforts that 
have been made to reform abuses, or to mould 



19 



public opinion, or to modify the constitution of 
society. Has not many a favourite project come to 
naught, many a bold system of reform utterly 
exploded, because the self-preserving principle of 
an enlightened judgment was not in it ? I do not 
complain of the rapidity with which every thing is 
moving around us; — of the earnest, — if you 
please, — the impetuous spirit that animates the 
great body of which we ourselves constitute a part ; 
on the contrary, I recognize in all this, an Allwise 
mind, an Almighty hand ; I think I see in it the 
germ of a better state of society, of a nobler type oT 
human character, than the world has seen hitherto ; 
but I am sure, after all, that it is to be regarded as 
a conditional prognostic of evil; for unless there 
be a high intellectual and moral influence to preside 
over this extended, complicated, never resting 
machinery, I know not what can save us from an 
explosion that will make a wreck of some of our 
best hopes, if it does not dash in pieces our entire 
social fabrick. 

Having thus briefly contemplated some of the 
dangers incident to the practical character of the 
age, especially in reference to educated men, we 
will now glance at some of the corresponding duties 
which are devolved upon them. The peculiar 
obligations of any class grow out of their peculiar 
abilities, relations, circumstances. While there are 



20 

general duties that devolve upon all men alike, 
there are particular duties to which educated 
men are called in consideration of their superior 
advantages and the position they occupy in society. 

I say then, they are bound to fall in with the 
spirit of the age, by cultivating and exhibiting a 
practical intellectual character. 

The first and most obvious thing implied in this 
is, that they are not to grow weary in the cause of 
mental improvement. They must be scholars 
before they can he practical scholars; they must 
DC intellectual men before they can be practical 
intellectual men ; and when they reach the goal of 
academical honours, however respectable may be 
their measure of attainment, they should regard it as 
only a starting point in a new race of honourable 
acquisition. There are those who look upon this as 
a difficult, if not an absolutely hopeless matter, in 
consideration of the claims which meet them at 
every point for active service. But herein they 
greatly mistake. Let an individual come to consider 
it as a high moral duty that he should be always 
growing in knowledge, and let him form a distinct 
and resolute purpose that the stock of his acquisi- 
tions shall be constantly enlarging, though it be 
by the smallest degrees, and it will be a matter of 
surprise, even to himself, how easily, how delight- 
fully, how effectually, this high resolve is carried 



21 

into execution. With his faculties always awake 
and the avenues for useful information always open, 
he will discover a thousand opportunities for 
improvement which another would allow to escape ; 
he will not disdain the humblest contribution to his 
knowledge from the humblest man in society; nay, 
he will take lessons by night and by day, even from 
the objects of inanimate nature ; for here especially 
are open to him some of the sublimest fields of 
science and philosophy. His profession may be an 
active and laborious one, insomuch that he is driven 
to make his nights short and his days long; but 
there belongs to his profession theory as well 
as practice, and his knowledge enlarges as his 
labour increases. Above all, he takes advantage 
of a systematic arrangement of his duties, — of an 
economical distribution of his time; he has his 
hours for business and his hours for study; and 
though he is always occupied, he is never in a hurry. 
It is in vain to say that this representation is merely 
imaginary ; for there are examples, many examples, 
both among the dead and the living to illustrate 
its practicability. The individuals who, at this 
moment, hold the most commanding eminence in 
our own country, in several of the higher depart- 
ments of learning, have prosecuted their researches 
and made their attainments in connection with an 
earnest devotion to the duties of some one or other 
of the liberal professions. 



But if an indefinite growth in knowledge be 
obligatory upon our scholars, not less essential is it 
that their knowledge should be turned to the most 
practical account; and that as it respects b^th 
themselves and others. 

It is quite possible for an individual to make 
considerable, even extensive, attainments in learn- 
ing, and yet be far from having a sound intellectual 
constitution. As the food which you receive does 
no good to your bodily system, unless it be subjected 
to the ordinary process of digestion and assimilation, 
by which its nutritive energy becomes diffused, so 
neither do any mental acquisitions accomplish their 
legitimate end, unless by a corresponding process 
they are taken up and carried through the whole 
intellectual system. Do we not sometimes see 
scholars whose minds are the merest ware-houses, — 
in which there is indeed a vast amount of material, 
but not the least trace of order in the disposition of 
it. If they are to be measured by their attainments, 
they are giants; if by their available attainments, 
they are pigmies. Their knowledge, instead of 
invigorating their faculties, hangs as a dead weight 
upon them ; and though the mere process of acqui- 
ring may grow easier, the general tone of the 
mind is in no wise improved. Now in opposition 
to this miscellaneous and inefficient mode of study, 
I would exhort every scholar, no matter whether 



23 

out of college or in it, to regard every new acquisi- 
tion as having accomplished its purpose, only as it 
imparts to the mind a new degree of strength. Let 
his mind have within itself symmetrical compart- 
ments corresponding to the various branches of 
knowledge, and let each new deposit be made with 
scrupulous care; let it, by distinct and vigorous 
efforts, act upon its own accumulated stores, 
extracting from them the elements of life and 
power; and it cannot be long before, under such a 
course of discipline, it will have reached a high and 
honourable maturity. Its growth is not stinted for 
the want of earnest thought on the one hand, or of 
practical application on the other; and you almost 
forget how much the man knows in your admiration 
of what he is. I imagine there are few finer 
examples of this than the late President Dwight of 
Yale College. It was difficult to enter a field of 
knowledge where he was not sufficiently at home 
to be your guide; and his knowledge on every 
subject was so much at his command, that it was 
not easier for him to breathe than to communicate 
it. But you really lost sight in a degree of the 
richness and variety of his acquisitions, in the 
surpassing majesty of the character into which these 
acquisitions were so admirably moulded. The 
thought which I have here suggested to you is one 
upon which he used to dwell as embodying one of 



24 

the primary laws of human improvement; and I 
urge it upon you with the m^ore alacrity, from 
finding it among my hallowed recollections of that 
truly eminent man. 

But it is not more needful that the acquisitions of 
our educated men should be rendered practical in 
respect to themselves than in respect to others. No 
one has a right to live for himself alone. The 
humblest man you meet is bound to make some 
contribution in aid of the common good of society j 
and he upon whom have been lavished abundantly 
the means of improvement, is under obligation to 
render a proportionably higher service. If, for the 
advantages of his condition, he is indebted primarily 
to a gracious providence, and is therefore bound to 
render his first homage to the infinite Benefactor, 
yet he is indebted subordinately to society, and 
society has a right to expect, to require, that he 
should serve her with the powers which she has 
helped to develope. Do you ask in what way he 
can render his acquisitions subservient to the public 
weal ? I answer, by making it the commanding 
purpose of his life to elevate the standard of thought, 
of feeling, of action in reference to whatever 
involves the interests of man in time or in eternity. 
It is not necessary, in order to secure this result, 
that he should belong to either of the liberal 
professions, or that he should mingle extensively in 



25 

the scenes of active life : he may stay at home in 
his study, and by his pen wield an influence that 
shall be felt and acknowledged to the ends of the 
earth. Whatever may be his relations to his fellow 
men, he is bound to see to it that they become in 
some way or other a channel of blessing ; otherwise 
he offends against the authority which constituted 
these relations; he offends especially against the 
practical spirit of the age. 

It belongs also to educated men to guard the age 
from those abuses to which its peculiarly practical 
character exposes it; to see that its impulses are 
healthful as well as vigorous ; that its energies are 
brought into exercise under the influence of 
enlightened and virtuous principle. I have already 
alluded to the fact that things are done in the moral 
world now with more than telegraphic despatch. 
Great events burst upon us without waiting to be 
heralded by significant omens. Here and there 
and every where, there seems an unwonted 
combination of the elements; and the inquiry is, 
*' Who shall ride in the whirlwind and direct the 
storm?" Who? Fow surely; you whose education 
has qualified you to occupy this responsible position ; 
whose disciplined minds and high attainments 
constitute a tower of strength as well as a treasury 
of light and wisdom. Things will move rapidly 
without any aid from you ; things will move rapidly, 



26 

notwithstanding all you can do to prevent it ; but 
it depends chiefly upon you whether they shall have 
a right or a wrong direction. The world is full of 
empyricism and imposture ; of reformers who need 
to be reformed, and of teachers who need to be 
taught ; and it is no small part of your duty to test 
equivocal claims, to separate chaff from wheat, to 
fix beacon lights where they are needed. And then 
there is an influence of a different kind which it 
belongs to you to meet and control, — I mean the 
influence of a timid or sluggish or time-serving 
policy, which takes to itself the fine sounding name 
of conservatism. Not that I object to a genuine 
conservatism; — so far from this that I consider the 
best hopes of the age as, in a great measure, bound 
up in it ; but the spirit to which I here refer differs 
from this, just as much as doing nothing and 
encouraging others to do nothing, differs from a 
course of earnest, but prudent and well directed 
action. You are not to be passive from the fear of 
doing wrong, but you are to be active and take care 
that you do right. You must not try to render 
things stationary from an apprehension of the evils 
that may possibly be incident to progress ; but you 
must encourage their onward movement, only taking 
care to prevent an erratic precipitancy. In a word, 
you are to stand forth as the master spirits of 
society ; and whatsoever your hand findeth to do in 



27 

exalting its character or improving its condition, 
you are to do it with your might. 

The most grateful part of my subject is yet before 
me. We have seen that the practical character of 
the age brings with it dangers against which you 
are to guard; duties which you are bound to fulfil; 
but our view of it would be altogether defective, 
if it should not include also the encouragements, 
the helps, which it supplies to the faithful discharge 
of the obligations which it imposes on you. 

I remark, then, that the prevailing practical and 
stirring spirit is fitted to exert an important influence 
through the medium of sympathy. It results from 
the very constitution of the mind that the mind 
takes its hue chiefly from the peculiar circumstances 
in which its faculties are developed. It sympathizes 
with the movements of the surrounding world : if 
they are sluggish, or if they are rapid, it will be 
likely to catch a portion of the same spirit. Or if, 
in particular cases, it assumes a highly contemplative 
character, and as a consequence, makes extensive 
acquisitions, when the world is in a state of indolent 
repose or even absolute stagnation, as in the period 
of the dark ages, my position is still illustrated in 
the fact that it never wakes to move the outer 
world ; it may have great and godlike conceptions, 
but it has not the conception of reducing any thing 
to practice. Society breathes upon it no exciting 



28 

influence, and therefore cannot complain if it 
recognizes no obligation to stand forth in a new 
and practical attitude for her benefit. But how 
different, how opposite, is the state of things 
in which your lot is cast. If, in the constitu- 
tion of the natural world, God has made activity 
the universal law, — so that the very earth on which 
you tread is never stationary for a moment, and 
the stars that look down upon you in their glory 
are performing ceaseless revolutions, — have not the 
movements of his providence in the practical work- 
ings of the age become accelerated into harmony with 
his ordinances in the kingdom of nature ? Has it 
not come to pass that you must absolutely go out of 
the world, in order to get beyond the reach of 
perpetual human activity ? Now I venture to say 
that if you were to pass your life merely as a student, 
your faculties would gather increased vigour, and 
your studies be prosecuted with greater success, 
from breathing the active spirit of the world without, 
and even from having the waves of an excited 
public opinion occasionally break over you. But as 
you are to be not merely a student, but a jpradical 
student, — as you are not only to acquire knowledge 
but to serve society by your acquisitions, you can 
hardly estimate too highly the importance of this 
feature in your condition. You are surrounded by 
influences that are fitted to keep your faculties in 



29 

working order. You breathe an atmosphere that 
can hardly fail to brace up the whole practical man. 
Even if you were disposed to ask a dispensation 
from intellectual toil, or to aspire to no higher 
character than that of an amateur student, you 
could not look out of your window without finding 
yourself rebuked, whatever part of the vast ma- 
chinery of society might fall under your eye. 

I may mention here also the influence of example ; 
for there is a power in example which belongs to 
nothing else. The practical spirit has already been 
at work long enough to have achieved some signal 
triumphs ; to have shown what it can accomplish 
in the formation of many illustrious characters 
which already brighten the page of the world's 
history. Here and there bright stars have arisen in 
our hemisphere, the splendours of which even the 
grave itself has been unable to quench; some of 
them have but recently appeared, while others have 
been shining through a succession of generations. 
Noble examples of learning, of wisdom, even of 
active usefulness, there were in earlier ages, before 
the practical spirit had begun extensively to diffuse 
itself; but these were exceptions from tke general 
rule, — lights in the midst of darkness; whereas in 
our day, such examples are occurring on every side 
of us ; and we are forbidden to doubt that intelligence 
and activity have already set out as twin sisters 



30 

to perform the circuit of the world. What a 
privilege to be able to contemplate such examples; 
to study the influences that made them great ; to 
copy out into your own character their high and 
admirable qualities, and to hold them to your mind 
till they have exerted all their invigorating and 
elevating power. As each successive generation 
contributes its own share of names to this immortal 
list, so are ye more favoured than any of your 
predecessors, in having before your eyes a greater 
amount than they of embalmed practical greatness; 
in having a more extended record than they of 
worthies whose lives were a perpetual tribute of 
blessing to the race, and whose history is one 
exalted lesson of intelligence and virtue. 

Recollect too that the educated men of our day 
have the advantage of entering into other men's 
labours. In our own country particularly, the 
wakeful and earnest spirit has been the ruling 
passion of at least the last two generations. It was 
thoroughly roused in the operation of those causes 
-which brought on our revolution; and during the 
ractual continuance of the tempest, though it operated 
in one direction only, yet it operated with mighty 
power. And when, after the storm of war, came the 
<;alm of peace, — when, after our name had been 
entered on the catalogue of independent nations, 
the discordant elements were to be reduced to 



31 

harmony and a new order of things to come up, 
here also the practical spirit found wide scope for its. 
operations, and here it was especially that it became 
so vigorous and mature. On the basis of the great 
national institutions which it originated, the 
educated men of this generation are permitted to 
stand and carry forward their various enterprizes for 
the benefit of their country and the world. You 
can avail yourself not only of the spirit which they 
have diffused, of the example which they have 
set, but of the labours which they have performed. 
Their efforts have availed to render yours easier and 
more successful. They had to encounter the 
difficulty of inception, that you might enjoy a rapid 
and delightful progress. 

The practical spirit secures the benefit of co- 
operation also. Only think what was the condition 
of a great mind making a great discovery, at a 
period removed from us only at the distance of a 
few centuries. You remember the case of the 
celebrated astronomer, Galileo. He ventured into 
the sublimest of all the fields of natural science ;. 
and the labours of his inquisitive mind were 
rewarded by a glimpse of certain great truths which 
had lain buried beneath the ignorance and rubbish 
of more than fifty centuries. But when he dared 
to speak of the discovery which he had made, the 
spirit of the age gave him the lie ; the hospitalities 



32 

of a dungeon were forced upon him ; and even his 
life would have been an offering to the reigning 
superstition, if he had had strength enough to hold 
out in the open vindication of his enlightened 
convictions. But let any great discovery in science 
or philosophy be made now, and there are fresh 
garlands brought forth to deck the honoured discove- 
rer; there are multitudes engaged to test the 
accuracy of his observations and his results ; and 
not a few are found entering the same field of 
research, with a view perhaps to push their inquiries 
to some remoter point ; — at least to gather up the 
fragments of knowledge that nothing be lost. You 
may enter any department in the field of science 
or literature or active life, and your efforts will not 
fail for the want of co-operation : you Avill find it 
easy to associate with yourself others of kindred 
tastes and pursuits, and both you and they will 
work more vigorously and to better purpose, 
than if you were severally to prosecute your efforts 
independently of each other. Oh yes, there is a 
goodly,— I had almost said a universal, fellowship 
now established in the world of intellect ; and this 
surely is to be reckoned among the richest triumphs 
of the practical spirit. 

I must not omit to add that the prospects which 
the workings of this spirit have opened upon us, 
are of the most cheering import. Does our eye rest 



as 

upon our own beloved country ? I dare not say that 
the elements of mighty evil are not in the midst of us ; 
that there are not influences at work here from which 
the Huler of the world must save us, else we perish. 
I dare not be confident that before the passing away 
even of this generation, there may not be witnessed 
among us portentous convulsions in which Liberty 
herself may seem ready to stretch her wings for her 
final flight. But if there be such a cloud resting 
upon our horizon, I look beyond it and behold a 
clear sky and a bright shining sun. I have no need 
to consult the wise men of the East or the "West, 
in order to feel all the assurance I ask that Heaven 
has ordained for us as a nation an ultimate glorious 
destiny. Here Liberty has been cradled; here she 
has been trained ; here she has lifted her golden 
sceptre ; and here, as certainly as God's providence 
utters truth, shall be the scene of her brightest 
triumphs. Now let your eyes range over the 
nations, and take in the entire world. The para- 
graph that informs you of the revolution of an 
empire, scarcely detains your eye or your thoughts 
for a moment, because it details but an every day 
event. Change, progress, reform, liberty, — once 
hard and unmeaning words, now fall like music on 
the ear of the nations. The Omniscient alone 
measures the distance between the present and that 
point in the future, when the world shall have 



struggled into liberty and into peace; — when to 
the inquiry that shall come up from millions of glad 
hearts, — "What meaneth all this glory?" — the 
answer shall be, "it is the glory of a social and 
civil, an intellectual and moral millennium." But 
the day certainly shall come ; for God by his provi- 
dence as well as his word hath spoken it. 

And what more powerful motives can be brought 
to bear upon the minds of educated men than this 
consideration suggests. You are not at work at an 
uncertainty, nor is your reward so far off but that 
it already looms up as a glorious thing. Not only is 
the exaltation of your country, the regeneration of 
the world, ordained in the councils of Heaven, but 
you have reached a point where incredulity herself 
can hardly doubt that there is a wonderful working 
together of things for the production of the coming 
glory. I was separated from you this morning by 
more than a hundred miles, but sometime before 
mid-day, I was safely landed in your beautiful 
valley. If, upon a sudden emergency, I should 
have occasion to converse with my family before I 
return to them, will I, think you, set myself doggedly 
to writing a letter, or will I not rather fly to the 
mysterious wires, which, though themselves never 
thinking, are yet ever surcharged with thought? 
When I ask for the latest news from Europe, I ask 
for what was done there ten or twelve days ago. 



35 



What is all this but the working of the practical 
spirit of the age ? And what else does it indicate 
but that the day for keeping a jubilee in honour of 
the redemption of the nations, draweth nigh? 
Scholars, what will ye do to hasten the day ? What 
more do ye require than this glorious prospect 
to bring all your energies into operation for the 
improvement of the race ? 

I know not where to look for a more impressive 
practical illustration of several of the leading 
thoughts which have now been presented to you, 
than is furnished by the extraordinary life and 
character of the late John Quincy Adams. The de- 
sire of knowledge manifested itself as the ruling 
passion of his earliest years; and it grew with his 
growth and strengthened with his strength. His 
opportunities for improvement from the time he left 
the cradle, were the best that the country, I may say, 
the world could afford; and he availed himself of 
them with most scrupulous fidelity. In due time he 
was a student at Harvard ; in due time he was a gra- 
duate at Harvard; in due time he was a professor at 
Harvard; in short, he exhausted all the privileges and 
honours which that venerable university had to be- 
stow; and each successive step in his course of study 
marked a greatly advanced stage in his career of im- 
provement. When he had arrived at middle age, he 
was well nigh a prodigy for his acquisitions; and 



36 

yet he rested not from the labour of acquiring till he 
went to rest in his grave. He seemed to have sur- 
veyed every department of the wide domain of 
learning; and start whatever question you might, he 
had principles or facts or arguments at command 
wherewith to settle it. I remember to have had occa- 
sion once to make proof of his universal knowledge. 
T asked his opinion on a disputed point which 
would have seemed most remote from the ordinary 
range of thought which a great statesman might 
be expected to prescribe to himself; and he answer- 
ed me as if he had been constituted an oracle on 
that particular subject; he not only gave me his 
opinion, but sustained it by reasons more luminous 
and decisive than I could have hoped to gather from 
almost any other source. And thus it was in 
relation to every subject. With powers of applica- 
tion that seemed never to require rest ; with a habit 
of observation that was never interrupted and that 
scarcely knew a limit; with a memory open to 
receive every thing but to let nothing escape ; his 
acquisitions became, I might almost say, the wonder 
of the age. I may safely assert that the man has 
not lived in our day who could claim a superiority 
in this respect to our venerable sage. 

And yet this man was not professionally a student. 
A student indeed he was ; but he studied with the 
cares of an entire nation pressing upon him; he 



37 

studied amidst the din and confusion of party strife ; 
he studied on the top of the mountain wave, when 
he was guiding the vessel of state in dark nights 
and fierce storms. If hooks were not at his 
command, he studied without them. The material 
which he had collected grew under the action of his 
own mind, hy a self-accumulating process; and 
whenever you met him, you always knew that he 
was wiser than when you parted from him, though 
the intervening period might have heen ever so hrief, 
and might have heen spent in the very drudgery of 
a high puhlic station. Is it not wonderful that 
such acquisitions should have heen made in such 
circumstances; that he should have heen at once 
one of the most vigorous students and hardest 
workers of his time ! 

Nor was his mind a mere depository of unavaila- 
ble knowledge; on the contrary, he knew every 
thing so systematically that every thing was at his 
command ; and more than that, — his faculties grew 
large and strong as well hy the process of accumu- 
lating as hy the treasures accumulated. Not a new 
thought entered his mind, hut it entered it as means 
of nutrition, as an element of power. He had 
indeed great strength of passion, and sometimes he 
displayed it in even a humiliating degree, in 
connection with the strength of his intellect; but 
whether his mind was in a state of excitement or a 



state of repose, every one felt that it was a mind of 
vast dimensions, and that it had received nothing 
that had not been rendered subservient to its 
growth. 

Need I say that a mind cast in such a mould, 
trained under such influences, could not be satisfied 
to live for itself alone. While he was yet a stripling, 
his country put his services in requisition; and with 
the exception of the brief period in which she 
allowed him to go and breathe the air of his alma 
mater, and prepare some of his young countrymen 
to follow on in his own track of public usefulness, 
he was always among the most active as well as 
the most honoured of her servants. If you will 
take the American almanac, and look over the list 
of those who have successively occupied the highest 
stations of influence and honour within the nation's 
gift, you cannot fail to be struck with the fact that 
this bright name meets you every where; showing 
at once that he was adequate to every thing and 
that the nation had found it out. His mission was 
one of enlightened, lofty patriotism; and he seemed 
to covet no higher honour than to lay his great 
powers and acquirements at the nation's feet. But 
the statesman did not, after all, absorb the man. 
He loved to exercise his powers for the benefit or 
even the gratification of any of his race ; and the 
last lines, I believe, that his hand ever penned were 



39 

written in the album of a lady who had asked him 
for such a memorial. The selfish spirit that spoils 
some great men, seemed to have gained no lodg- 
ment in his bosom. He was emphatically a labourer, 
and his field was the world. 

Look at this great man now in his relation to the 
age that produced him. Had he lived a few centu- 
ries before, he might indeed have been born the 
same infant, but he never could have lived and died 
the same man. The God of nature might have 
given him the same faculties which he actually 
possessed; but the spirit of the age would, to a 
great extent, have crippled them; or if he had had 
glorious thoughts, he would have had them to 
himself, unless indeed he had recorded them for 
the benefit of some future and more practical age. 
But thanks to a gracious providence, before he was 
born, the spirit that is in man had begun to arouse 
itself to vigorous action. In our own country 
especially, were those premonitory heavings of 
society, which told that the good angel, Freedom, 
was about to light down among us; and the 
country's eye was looking and her heart throbbing, 
in expectation of this celestial guest, until she 
finally came in a shower of blood. Then was that 
boy baptized;— baptized at his country's altar; — 
baptized with the spirit of Patriotism;— baptized 
in the sacred name of Liberty; and his whole life 



40 

was a redemption of the pledge that he should live 
for his nation's honour. The practical spirit throb- 
bed, as a principle of life, in his first pulsations; it 
watched, as a guardian angel, around his cradle ; it 
moulded, as a mighty plastic influence, his great 
powers; it kept his heart full of courage and his 
hand nerved for action, till with his armour on, and 
in a great assemblage of illustrious compeers, he 
was stealthily met by that foe which gives quarter 
to no man, and which left him barely time enough 
faintly to articulate,— " The last of earth." The 
great scholar, the great statesman, the great patriot, 
the great man, bowed his head then, for the first 
time, to an adversary. They laid him away 
among the illustrious dead ; and it was long before 
his country could wipe away her tears ; and even 
other nations chronicled his death as the death of a 
benefactor. 

And right enough too; — for if he was indebted to 
the age for much of what he was, not less is the 
age indebted to him for much of what she is. Hii» 
own country, — who shall record all the noble 
services he has rendered her? Time has been 
when he who should have essayed to exhibit him 
in his public relations, might have dipped his pen 
in gall; but that great peace maker, the grave, has 
intervened to suppress the risings of party spirit, 
and to throw into a better light actions that might 



41 

once have seemed pf dubious import; insomuch 
that now you might almost trust the fiercest of his 
political opponents to write his epitaph. And it is 
scarcely too much to say that his influence has 
become an all-pervading element among the 
nations. While it operates directly in what they 
have heard and perhaps seen of his great wisdom 
and energy, it operates yet more extensively through 
the medium of international relations; for so 
intimately are the nations now connected with 
each other, that they share each others' influences, 
live in each others' pulsations, work out each 
others' destinies. I say, without the fear of contra- 
diction, the spirit of John Quincy Adams, " the old 
man eloquent," the champion of liberty, the stern 
avenger of wrong, a very apostle of republican 
institutions, lives wherever civilized man lives; 
and it is for Him alone who knoweth all things to 
decide how far the great events that are giving 
character to our time, may be the continued 
movement of hidden springs which his mighty 
hand touched before it was left to moulder in the 
sepulchre. 

I did not begin this train of remark upon our 
honoured countryman with any intention to 
pronounce his eulogy, but simply to show you by 
an illustrious example at what you ought to aim, 
and what you may accomplish as practical educa- 
6 



42 

ted men. Nor do I undertake to say that any of 
you can reach the same measure of either useful- 
ness or honour that God's providence meted out to 
him ; for in his case, in addition to exalted natural 
powers, there was a combination of favouring 
circumstances which possibly may never exist 
again. But I say with the utmost confidence that 
any of you in this active period may be eminently 
useful; and his history is the voucher for it. Let 
the cultivation of your intellects then be a work for 
life. Let the ministering to the welfare of your 
country and your race be a work for life. Let 
integrity and virtue be reflected in all your conduct 
through life. Show yourselves in all respects 
worthy of this practical age, and endeavour to 
exalt it far above all its predecessors. Thus will 
your alma mater be proud to show your name on 
the list of her sons; society will reward your 
benefactions with her most valuable and enduring 
honours; and many an imperishable wreath may 
be laid upon your graves by the good and great of 
the generations that shall come after you. 



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